Universities are continually under pressure to do more in terms of delivery, for less in terms of resources. For engineering and design courses, particularly those where a high level of practical project work is expected, this can be a particular challenge. Restriction of resources can be manifested in many ways, including limits on staffing, modest equipment availability, and constrained consumable budgets. Sometimes this may be a temporary situation, such as when infrastructure lags new project based teaching initiatives but can equally be an ongoing pressure as budgets are squeezed.
This paper looks at some of the pressures associated with running practical based teaching programmes and explores some ways in which some measures of mitigation can be put in place.